**DARIUSH I KNOW YOU FREQUENT THESE BOARDS, DO NOT GO FURTHER OR IT WILL RUIN YOUR FUN**
Okay with that out of the way, hopefully my players will stay out of the thread. We're going to revisit the DragonLance adventure path Key of Destiny, and we stopped at an interesting point: at 18th level, just before the finale of the entire thing! (I know it's odd, we had some stuff in real life go down that caused a ruckus.)
So I have finalized updating it to Pathfinder, but I seek some help for the final encounter.
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First of all, here are the CR breakdowns. I was planning for six 19th-20th level PCs. The cavalier PC will have a dragon mount as his cohort from Leadership, which I understand does not affect the challenge rating. Assisting the PCs are NPCS as follows: one CR 23, one CR 20, a second CR 20, and an undetermined CR which I haven't finished statting yet.
Facing them are the following enemies: one CR 29, one CR 21, and one CR 20. There are other factors involved that probably increase the overall CR by 2.
Now with all that said, it seems my sister will be moving back to town which means we will have a SEVENTH PC at level 19-20. I am going to need to add another enemy to the combat, but I need help in deciding how tough that enemy should be.
So...what should be the CR of the NPC on the heroes' side, and what should be the CR of the additional enemy? The math is blowing my mind.
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Second, if I were to post the Pathfinderized stat-block of the CR 29 big boss, would anyone be willing to go over it to A) make sure it's been converted correctly and B) help me make sure it's fully optimized? This fight needs to be epic, and if it ends in a TPK that's perfectly fine (although I hope to have it go either way).
Thanks for any help!
You should probably go a bit deeper ion detail, especially describing your group: which classes and how optimized are they?
One thing: are all of those NPC really needed with such a large group? They are all more powerful than the PC, it's never a good thing, you want your players to feel the heroes, not the minions.
I have a CR 27 Dragon statted up already. It is pretty evil though. I used it to take on 5 level 21 PC's on its own.
It is a TPK in the making so unless you have really optimised players I would not suggest it.
I would have to take some of the 3.5 feats out. It only has about 3 of them though. The CR 29 should be able to handle things on its own. I can go over the CR 29 boss. If I think it is a weak CR 29 then I might need more info on your group also. Send me a PM when you get a chance.
Another forum poster (Turin the Mad) put up the stats for a CR27 dragon he used in the Kingmaker AP; he ran a similarly high-powered group, so I think it would make for a decent baseline comparison.
It would also help to know the terrain and color of the dragon...
Not everyone is familiar with that scenario.
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Sorry about the lack of a quick response; after no one responded to this post for a bit I thought no one was going to.
Okay, here’s what we’ve got. Gellidus is a CR 29 white dragon overlord, melee-focused dragon with magical runes carved on his body. He is accompanied by a CR 21 Wizard with an evocation/necromancy focus and a CR 20 Cavalier (Gendarme). The latter two are riding skeletal dragon-wurms (no combat effect other than being fast, flying mounts.)
The encounter takes place in a ginormous cave, large enough for the colossal dragon to move about freely, but shortly after combat begins the room explodes outward from the center (in a release of energy from an artifact in the center) and the rest of the encounter takes place in the eye of a hurricane-winds storm. There is no ground at that point, but all PCs will have the ability to fly. From that point on the PCs need to kill the dragon and his ritual artifact in order to defeat him. Without going into too much detail, for the first round of combat the Boss dragon (Gellidus) will not be taking any actions in order to complete a ritual. This is key, because then you’ve just got two NPCs versus the entire hero party for one round.
The group is made up of (including the added PC) 7 19-20th level pcs (I assume they’ll be 20th at this point) who are going to be heavily optimized, and accompanied by three NPCs. The party then looks like this:
Fighter (Dragoon)
Fighter (Archer)
Fighter (Whip-Master)
Cleric (Healing/Light)
Oracle (Fire)
Bard
Sorcerer (Draconic/Fire)
NPC Dragon (CR 23)
NPC Dragon (CR 20)
NPC Paladin (CR 20)
That doesn’t even include the mounts of the Dragoon and Archer, which will likely be dragons through the leadership feat.
On the other side, you’ve got:
CR 29 Dragon Boss (Gellidus AKA Frost)
CR 21 Wizard
CR 20 Cavalier (Gendarme)
So I think I need to add something to the “baddie” side of things.
Crysknife: I’m not the kind of guy to want to outshine PCs by any means, but this story has been running for years and the three NPCs in question are rather important to the story. In addition, this encounter happens after multiple other high-level encounters with no time for rest, so I planned on bringing in the CR 23 Dragon and CR 20 Paladin to heal the party at that point. All of this happening in the “lair” of the boss, so it would be odd to then have them leave.
I played through this module series in 3.5 and I remember the end fight being kind of a let down. One thing I would make sure of is to massively upgrade the white dragon overlord's breath weapon. 20d4 is pathetic damage at 20th level, when it breathed on us we were like really 54 damage? It didn't even dent our protection from cold. I would make it at least 20d12 if not higher, the White Dragon Overlord breath weapon shouldn't be outdone by a cone of cold...
Just looking at what you have so far I would add tons and tons and tons of lesser monsters to the encounter to get in the PCs way. Maybe add like 4 or 5 white dragons (probably greater wyrm), some demons, more npc casters, some of the white dragon spawn creatures. The fight should be epic.
With 10 people on the PCs side they are going to have a crazy number of actions and as is will probably easily win against 3 opponents. While there are some encounters on the way you can just skip them by leveraging high level magic. I would add some extra defenses to the lair to prevent things like ethereal movement through walls or divination magic so that the party will have to fight a few times before hand to wear them down some.
Good luck hope your encounter ends up epic!
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I played through this module series in 3.5 and I remember the end fight being kind of a let down. One thing I would make sure of is to massively upgrade the white dragon overlord's breath weapon. 20d4 is pathetic damage at 20th level, when it breathed on us we were like really 54 damage? It didn't even dent our protection from cold. I would make it at least 20d12 if not higher, the White Dragon Overlord breath weapon shouldn't be outdone by a cone of cold...
Just looking at what you have so far I would add tons and tons and tons of lesser monsters to the encounter to get in the PCs way. Maybe add like 4 or 5 white dragons (probably greater wyrm), some demons, more npc casters, some of the white dragon spawn creatures. The fight should be epic.
With 10 people on the PCs side they are going to have a crazy number of actions and as is will probably easily win against 3 opponents. While there are some encounters on the way you can just skip them by leveraging high level magic. I would add some extra defenses to the lair to prevent things like ethereal movement through walls or divination magic so that the party will have to fight a few times before hand to wear them down some.
Good luck hope your encounter ends up epic!
Along these lines use the Pathfinder Chromatic Dragon's abilities...
I like it! Thanks. I did the math, and the PCs will definitely be 19th level by the final encounter, not 20th. So it's 7 19th level PCs and their 3 allies versus the bad guys.
We've got the CR 29, 21, and 20. How many weaker dragons should I put in there?
I'm at work, so after I actaully do a little work I'll post some details on these three NPCs.
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I'd probably have your casters summon a few baddies 2-3 and maybe toss in a few younger dragons (like 3). Basically the point of the lesser dragons is to blow the PCs expendable cold resist and to set up some AoOs.
The big thing is going to be your ability to maximize your use of terrain and spells. Remember that the dragon can reshape ice at will...so using Ice Wall and then reshaping it into a sphere around the players or using Ice Tomb are all really neat options you may be able to play with. Its tough without ground but I am sure you can be creative.
With a 21 level wizard you should be able to hold the party off for a round. That give the CR 29 Dragon time to complete the ritual If he has a decent charisma then gate and/or planar binding should be used to call in more help, using part of his NPC wealth to seal the agreement. If he still has money left over then equipping the creature that is gated in will make it stronger. That might even be considered to be part of the party, or it can be the payment.
I would also have the wizard buffing himself, the cavalier and the dragon before the PC's show up. Having multiple alarm spells and or mooks letting the wizard know where the party is can help with this.
Action economy is strongly in the PC's favor. I would add 2 to 3 NPC's for the bad guys. They don't have to be really strong, but they do have to present a threat.
Okay, sometimes simple solutions are difficult to find. When the room explodes outward, I'll have the CR 23 Dragon and his CR 20 Paladin get sucked out into the storm. It serves two purposes: removing two high-level NPCs that could outshine the PCs while communicating how serious the threat is. It also allows me to introduce the NPCs for a minute before removing them.
So there go two problems with action economy. I think I'm going to take all of your advice (tactics too!) and while the Gate thing doesn't tickle my fancy, I'm definitely using the rest. I'll throw in 3 reasonably-strong NPCs (likely dragons) to mix things up a bit.
The cool thing with this is if the battle starts to look like it's not winnable for the PCs, I can randomly have NPCs get sucked out into the temptest.
PS Wraithstrike, the Dragon/Wizard/Cavalier are buffed to high heaven before combat begins. I'll PM you their stat blocks.
If only the NPC's get sucked out then the players might know you are helping them unless you can work it into the story so that it makes sense.
Another forum poster (Turin the Mad) put up the stats for a CR27 dragon he used in the Kingmaker AP; he ran a similarly high-powered group, so I think it would make for a decent baseline comparison.
** spoiler omitted **
It would not be hard to upgun the linkified critter to attain the necessary CR. Just add racial hit dice ... lots of them ... <evil grin>
Who does the cleric worship?
Are you going straight Pathfinder or do you have PRCS from the Dragonlance products?
I messed that part up, terribly sorry. It's been a long time since we've played. The character WAS a Cleric of Mishakal, but he found out through the story that he's actually the son of Hiddukel, and through the truth being hidden by Mishakal (ironically doing the service of Hiddukel, since hiding the truth is his forte) the PC has forsaken god-worship and will actually be an Oracle of Life.
And we're using exclusively the Paizo core books and the Dragonlance 3.5 products with appopriate adjustments.